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Bobcat Introduces TL623 Telehandler
Jessica Schwartz
Dos & Don’ts Of Landscape Design-Build
Practices to embrace and mistakes to avoid for project success. I have had the great fortune of working in the Green Industry for over 45 years (I started when I was very young!). In that time, I have had the great honor of working at some incredible companies, with leaders of the industry, and in all parts of the country. I have learned many lessons on how to be successful in design-build. More importantly, I have learned mistakes to avoid (and yes, I have made some big ones myself). I could fill a book with these lessons, but here I will provide just some highlights. Sales I started my career designing and selling landscape design-build projects. I will start with some lessons I learned that still stick with me. These principles apply to those starting off in the Industry as well as owners hiring people new to the Industry. Do work as an apprentice. When I was hired for my first job, I worked as an apprentice to Tom Lied, one of the founders of the National Association of Landscape Professionals (which was ALCA at the time) and a great designer and businessperson. This proved to be a better route than being thrown to the wolves and making a lot of mistakes. Learning the design-sales process in a sheltered environment was invaluable. In the six months I collaborated with Tom, I developed a solid foundation. If you are hiring a new design salesperson, I encourage you to introduce them to ...
Six Ways To Improve Job Bids
Creating better and more accurate landscape bids should be a top priority of your sales team. Accurate and timely bids based on precise job costing data can put you on track to building long-term relationships with your clients—and lead to more profit. Here are six keys to making your next bid a winning one. 1. Be Consistent Bidding better is all about consistency—consistency in the way you’re measuring your job sites and consistency in the job cost data that you’re referencing. Whether you’re heading out and walking to your sites with a hand wheel or using GPS technology to measure off satellites, your consistency and accuracy in counts and measurements is how the bid starts off the right way. If you’re not using job costing software to track your cost data, Excel is the most common tool. If you’re already using Excel, it’s essential that all your estimators use the same spreadsheet and the same version. Whatever your method, the spreadsheet or software should accurately reflect your labor and materials costs. 2. Know Your Costs Know your actual job costs. As mentioned above, the job costing spreadsheet or software you use should include accurate costs for labor and materials. For materials costs, which can fluctuate depending on where and when you’re purchasing, make sure you’re capturing your costs as accurately and as often as possible. A job costing software may have the capability to track how much you’re actually spending, average your costs, and calculate your costs automatically. There are ...
Six Ways To Improve Job Bids
Creating better and more accurate landscape bids should be a top priority of your sales team. Accurate and timely bids based on precise job costing data can put you on track to building long-term relationships with your clients—and lead to more profit. Here are six keys to making your next bid a winning one. 1. Be Consistent Bidding better is all about consistency—consistency in the way you’re measuring your job sites and consistency in the job cost data that you’re referencing. Whether you’re heading out and walking to your sites with a hand wheel or using GPS technology to measure off satellites, your consistency and accuracy in counts and measurements is how the bid starts off the right way. If you’re not using job costing software to track your cost data, Excel is the most common tool. If you’re already using Excel, it’s essential that all your estimators use the same spreadsheet and the same version. Whatever your method, the spreadsheet or software should accurately reflect your labor and materials costs. 2. Know Your Costs Know your actual job costs. As mentioned above, the job costing spreadsheet or software you use should include accurate costs for labor and materials. For materials costs, which can fluctuate depending on where and when you’re purchasing, make sure you’re capturing your costs as accurately and as often as possible. A job costing software may have the capability to track how much you’re actually spending, average your costs, and calculate your costs automatically. There are ...
Scheduling And Route Optimization: The Path To Profitability
Increasing productivity increases profits, and scheduling and route optimization are two key areas where landscaping companies can see significant productivity gains with small investments. In this article, we’ll cover what to look for to improve your systems and tips to boost efficiency, reduce costs, and do more with less. Lawn care and landscaping crews are most likely doing multiple jobs in a single day, so increasing each job’s profitability—even by a small amount—can have a significant impact on the bottom line. It’s crucial to keep crews as productive as possible. Key Metrics To Monitor Understanding your metrics is fundamental to optimizing efficiency, achieving growth goals, and maximizing profitability. For every part of our industry, it’s vital to leverage expense tracking through job costing. Job costing can be looked at in different ways including “profitability per job,” as well as more granular views like “profitability per crew” and “per man-hour.” When you know which crew is most efficient, you can staff them on your biggest-ticket jobs and highest margin work to maximize profitability. Backlog is another critical metric to monitor to make sure you’re adequately staffing your team to serve clients without delays. Access to real-time metrics reveals which factors contribute to your backlog, such as production capacity, crew efficiency, and material availability. Another important metric for maximizing revenue is proposal acceptance rate. A low acceptance rate may indicate that your pricing is too high. On the other hand, if nearly all of your proposals are being accepted, it might ...
Scheduling And Route Optimization: The Path To Profitability
Increasing productivity increases profits, and scheduling and route optimization are two key areas where landscaping companies can see significant productivity gains with small investments. In this article, we’ll cover what to look for to improve your systems and tips to boost efficiency, reduce costs, and do more with less. Lawn care and landscaping crews are most likely doing multiple jobs in a single day, so increasing each job’s profitability—even by a small amount—can have a significant impact on the bottom line. It’s crucial to keep crews as productive as possible. Key Metrics To Monitor Understanding your metrics is fundamental to optimizing efficiency, achieving growth goals, and maximizing profitability. For every part of our industry, it’s vital to leverage expense tracking through job costing. Job costing can be looked at in different ways including “profitability per job,” as well as more granular views like “profitability per crew” and “per man-hour.” When you know which crew is most efficient, you can staff them on your biggest-ticket jobs and highest margin work to maximize profitability. Backlog is another critical metric to monitor to make sure you’re adequately staffing your team to serve clients without delays. Access to real-time metrics reveals which factors contribute to your backlog, such as production capacity, crew efficiency, and material availability. Another important metric for maximizing revenue is proposal acceptance rate. A low acceptance rate may indicate that your pricing is too high. On the other hand, if nearly all of your proposals are being accepted, it might ...
